More on: 4G WAN Failover

A useful way to add resilience and redundancy in the event of broadband failure by employing 4G LTE mobile connectivity

A useful option to consider for organisations who need to reliably run mission-critical applications at branch offices communicating with central sites and/or the internet in general, is a recently introduced feature for both NetPilot and SoHoBlue models. The new feature known as ‘4G WAN Failover’ is available with V6.2.6 software and provides a cost effective means of adding resilience and redundancy in the event of broadband failure.

Duplicating business class broadband links for resilience across a large number of branch offices, may not be ideal from a cost perspective. Further, if one broadband link goes down, there is a possibility that a second standby link would also go down as both would share common fixed link infrastructure at the local premises, at the local exchange and indeed further into the internet – making useful resilience somewhat questionable.

Making use of standby 4G LTE mobile data links means more single points of failure are eliminated. The likelihood of both mobile and fixed link networks both being down is remote.

In operation the primary WAN link (often broadband) is constantly checked to ensure all is well. In the event of a connectivity failure NetPilot or SoHoBlue units will automatically connect via the pre-configured 4G network (3G is possible but with lower throughput) and important business communications can continue.

Once reliable communications are re-established on the primary WAN link, the 4G data call will be disconnected and the primary link used from then on.

The 4G WAN Failover option, comprising of both extra hardware and software, costs £150. The user will require a suitable mobile SIM compatible with their chosen mobile provider.